Chapter 004: The Three Heads Gather
Hou Jun and Liu's new shack is in the northwest corner of the original foundation, very close to the entrance to the village. As soon as the three of Muramasa's father and son left, the horse team galloped closer.
Although the Tang Empire has a civilized style, women are always not suitable to show their heads. At this time, she hid behind Hou Jun, and the two looked at the crowd of horses galloping on the avenue together.
Fourteen men came, riding only twelve horses, one of whom was brown-bearded, forty-five or six years old, dressed in a dark green robe, with white trousers and black leather boots, galloping in the middle.
The people who galloped with him were fifty miles away, with five locks of long hair, a thin face, a green robe and a black horse, and several horses were clustered in front of and behind them, all of them were dressed in black and short, with leather belts around their waists, and everyone was carrying waist knives.
Strangely enough, a yellow horse came running after the procession, and immediately there were three people sitting on it. Two blue-robed people caught a man in a dark green official robe one after the other, and the three of them sat on horses, riding crookedly, and the person who was sandwiched in the middle seemed to wake up drunk, with a cloak on his head, and he couldn't see his face clearly.
Before Hou Jun could look closely, these people had already passed through the village from a distance.
Only because Hou Jun began to be estranged from his father at the age of five, and at the age of thirteen, he went to Zhongnan Mountain to learn martial arts, so he didn't know much about the officialdom.
As soon as Hou Jun was told by her, he thought that the thin old man should have the highest rank, because no one in this group was dressed like him, and the two who wore dark green robes should be the deputy pastor.
I was about to ask Liu if this was the case, when I suddenly felt that Liu's hands were holding him, and his chest and abdomen were tightly clinging to his arms.
For a while, I felt that half of my body was a little stiff. He knew that this was an unintentional move by the Liu clan to avoid those who came. But at this moment, as Liu's breathing fluctuated, the force of pressure from above his left arm made him dare not move. He was afraid that he deliberately avoided it and showed Liu's unintentional moves, and he didn't want to make the relationship between the two people that had just eased again, so he just said, "It seems that we should have something, you say, is the older one the highest official position?" ”
"Not really." Liu let go of Hou Jun's arm and said, "How about you come and see our new house?" They looked toward the low shack.
The horse team did not stop, galloping through the village, until about seven or eight miles northwest of the village, surrounded by mountains and an open grassland with a radius of more than 40 miles.
A few neat rows of stables appeared on the sunny slopes not far away, and the same buildings were found in the cols far ahead. The neighing of horses came and went.
At the entrance to the ranch was a row of bureaucratic bungalows, with red pillars in the cloister, and deep smoke was billowing out of the windows of several of them, and someone was coughing in the room. A herd of six or seven shepherds was coming down from the hillside near the left, carrying dry firewood that had just been cut on their shoulders. They were talking and laughing, and suddenly they saw the group of people who had just entered, and everyone restrained their laughter, put the firewood on their shoulders outside the smoke-filled door of the room, and stood in unison to salute the visitors. But the old man in the blue robe and the black horse raised his hand to stop him and waved at them.
These people were trembling, and they didn't know what to do, so they didn't dare to stay longer, so they crept past one by one, and ran towards the horse supervisor in the distance.
At this moment, after a few loud coughs in the house, a sharp cry came from the house: "Grandma, let you get some firewood to make a fire, where are you...... cough cough cough ...... This once-in-a-century wind and snow, Chen Ba! Chen Ba! You can't even make a fucking fire, no wonder your wife can't have a son! If they come, the shepherd, and they will be frozen, they will not be beaten with your whip! ”
The old man in the green robe turned his eyes to look at the brown-bearded middle-aged official beside him, and at this moment his face was iron-blue. So he said in a deep voice, "Lord Yue, according to the lower officials, it is better to go to the horse prison first to take a look, the fire is still burning here, and the smoke is miasma." ”
The middle-aged man snorted, without saying a word, threw the stirrup and dismounted, and strode towards the house with a horsewhip in hand, obviously vetoing the old man's proposal, and the old man had to signal the entourage and others to dismount and follow closely.
The yellow horse of the three people also came, and the two people in the green robe supported the one who sat in the middle, one jumped off the horse first, and then the other person also came down, and the two of them worked together to support the one in the dark green official robe, and finally rolled and fell down from the horse, and the person was unbearable, and vomited on the ground with a "wow", and the smell of wine wanted to smoke people upside down.
The old man turned around and instructed the two with an expressionless face, "Help the senior deputy pastor to the next room to sober up, be careful that the room is not too hot, find two people to guard, if you choke the senior deputy pastor, you are the only one to ask." ”
The two of them nodded when they heard this, and they just heard the sound of two leather whips on their bodies in the room, and a person's scream screamed, "Lord Yue, Lord Yue, villain, villain......" I only heard the sound of the horn and another whip. Just to hide from the bad luck, he hurriedly helped the senior deputy pastor to the room next to him.
There are three places in the house, there is no partition in the middle, next to the wall is a row of boxwood roll cabinets, the screen is folded three times, there is a circle of bookcases, there is a copper brazier on the ground in the middle, which is still smoking, and there is a sharp mouth and high cheekbones kneeling on the ground next to the door, up and down the thirty, with a bruise on the face and neck, and the forehand covers his face to defend himself.
"Lord Yue, I haven't slept in the past two days, and the county hasn't gone back, urging these personnel to strengthen the stable, plug the leaks, seal the windows, chop wood, make fires, protect the cold, and protect the horses......"
"Oh? It sounds like Steward Luo is not hard to worry about business, but this official wants to ask you, Steward Luo, how many products do you have in your official residence? What is the position? Which aspect? , this official just whipped you because you are good at official affairs and delay major things. ”
"This ...... This ......" Steward Luo opened his mouth for a while, and said in his heart that you don't know where you have been for a year, and you have never been there, and something happened today, and my hat was so buttoned that I couldn't even look at my knees.
But because he is just a housekeeper and has no official rank, he should not be in charge of the ranch affairs at all, and it is obvious that when he was shouting in the house just now, Pastor Yue and the others were already standing outside the house.
He secretly raised his eyelids, but he didn't see his master, the high pastor, and he panicked, and said, "It's the little master......
"Shut up, if you keep talking, it's not even appropriate to be a minion." The long-bearded old man interrupted him, and suddenly there was music on the ground, and he asked Steward Luo on the ground, "I heard you say that you haven't even returned to the county in the past two days, so I don't know who is having fun on Huangcui Tower at three o'clock on the night of the snow?" This official happened to pass by the street, and listening to the man's voice was very similar to that of Steward Luo. ”
Steward Luo secretly gritted his teeth and scolded in his heart, "You old bastard, what happened to pass by the street, you and Lao Tzu are fighting for the same girl, and you are here to fight grandpa's ambush!" ”
Huang Cuilou is the largest green building in Liuzhong County, I didn't expect that my secret happiness would reach the ears of Lord Yue so soon, if this matter is true, not only did he slap his mouth just now, but even his master had no face, and the old housekeeper squeaked and denied, "I think the adults listened to the errand, and the villain ......."
"Forget it, this official didn't come today to listen to your mess, you go and find Liu Jiancheng, He Zhubo, and the reporters."
After a while, one after another, officials and stewards of all sizes arrived, and the room, which was originally quite spacious, was crowded with people.
"Lord Liu, I heard that you have always lived in the ranch, and the situation in the past two days must be the clearest, so you will tell you about it." Yue Mu said.
The mentioned eunuch is called Liu Wu, who is almost forty years old, and he is usually in charge, and he lives in the horse farm for seven or eight days out of ten days.
One is because the three big shopkeepers are not always there, in addition to them, they are the highest grade, and the three supervisors will hit the board on their heads if there is a problem, and the second is that their home is on the mountain north of the racecourse, and the road is not close.
Liu Wu happened to return home on the day of the snow, and when the wind and snow were together, he couldn't get over for a while, so he got up and rushed to the horse farm at three o'clock, and saw that the situation was very bad.
Since there has never been such weather here, and the usual field work does not take into account the layer of snow prevention at all, a rough count shows that thirty-eight old, weak, and sick horses froze to death in one night, and sixty-six foals, which is the total number of births this autumn, and none of them remained.
At that time, he was stunned, according to the provisions of the "Stable Pastoral Order", the current loss, not to mention himself, even the pastoral supervisors can't bear it, and the board is still secondary, and it is estimated that he will have to burn the high incense for three days to go home and hold the child.
On the one hand, he urgently mobilized manpower to remove snow from the top of the prison cell, and then some people tied up straw curtains, trying to seal the doors and windows of the 200 prison cells in the pasture, but because he was not prepared, he could not gather so much grass for curtains, so he had to use the grass that had not yet been opened for the time being, and on the other hand, he sent people up the mountain to chop firewood and light a fire near the prison cell to keep warm. At the same time, he sent someone to get up early in the morning and go to the county to report to the three adults.
Liu Jian Cheng told the details of the situation, the two pastoral supervisors were dumbfounded, and asked a few reporters to take the account books, and reported the details one by one, Yue and Lu glanced at each other, Yue Mu Jian said to Liu Wu, "Lord Liu, you have done a good job, Lord Lu and I will definitely greatly praise you, now I and Lord Lu have to discuss carefully, how to explain the details of the snow disaster and the loss of horses to Lord Guo in Xizhou, the follow-up affairs in the horse farm, there is still a lot of work for you Lord Liu, if it's okay, you can go and get busy with you." ”
When the lower-level officials dispersed one after another, Yue Mu Jian slapped his thigh and sighed long, "Careless, careless!" Lu Mujian didn't say a word, he knew that this matter was not handled properly, and what was waiting for him would be. After a long time, Lu Mu Jian said slowly:
"I can't hide from it, Lu only asks Lord Yue, for the sake of you and I who have worked together for many years, I have time to say a few kind words for me in front of Lord Guo, and if Lu has the opportunity in the future, he will definitely defend Lord Yue wholeheartedly."
"It's just a natural disaster, and Lord Guo of Xizhou will definitely weigh and consider it in many ways. But the duty is related, any prevarication is not deserved, Lord Lu, don't you say? ”
"What my lord said is that my lord's courage to take on the burden has always been a model for my subordinates, and I can't wait to go to the state with Lord Yue to take the blame, but I can't do it because of the limitations of my rank."
"Brother Lu, you misunderstood, according to my brother, it is not suitable for you and me to go to Xizhou, now is not the time to fight for grades, but to send the most suitable person to do the most suitable thing. First, I will select all the prisoners transferred from Lingnan in the past two days, and second, I heard that there are women in this batch of prisoners, and there is no rule of using women in the past. Everything that involves employing people is a big thing, and that's what we just said, to send the most suitable people to do the most suitable things. ”
"What do you mean by ......"
Master Yue raised his hand expressionlessly and pointed to the next door. Deputy Superintendent Lu pondered for a moment, his face suddenly brightened, "Indeed! ”
The two joined hands and walked to the room where the senior deputy pastor was sobering up.
Hou Jun did not see the people from the ranch to convene for half a day since the horse team passed, while waiting for the letter, he went to the nearby slope to cut down a number of thorn branches, and built a ten-step square fence around the shack.
It's easy to get it and think of the charcoal fire, I wanted to tear down a side of the siege and widen it, Liu said, "Wouldn't it be troublesome, just cut more, and add a small room to the charcoal fire with the fence, the wind is also smaller, not as big as the air." ”
Hou Jun said yes, he was doing it, but he saw Luo Quan trotting over and saying to the two, "We are in charge...... Steward Luo just came to instruct that Supervisor Gao was going to Xizhou on business, and if he couldn't make it before dark on the road for more than 100 miles, let me find a good horse. ”
Liu said, "Isn't it strange that this shepherd is guarding the horse farm, but he came to us to borrow a horse. ”
"Okay, but it's okay, it's a loan." Hou Jun said.
Luo Quan agreed repeatedly, revealing at the same time, "It's not that you have to borrow your horse, but most of the horses in the field are frostbitten." "I can't hold the charcoal fire anymore. The charcoal fire is holding its head high, and it is almost a hoof.
Outside the village, there were two horsemen galloping by, going to the horse farm, Hou Jun whistled at the charcoal fire, took Luo Quan's hand, and put it on its neck, and the charcoal fire immediately became obedient, and he led it.